Letter by Rousseau

'Calvin's idea of the small city as a perfect theocracy was straightforward. Here was an economically viable environment, a physical place offering protection in time of war, still small enough to permit constant surveillance of the populace. From the religious point of view, the adventage of the small city is that it is the most secure political tool to repress man's natural baseness. Rousseau struggled to view mankind as naturally good and yet view the political control as legitimate, therefore his view of the relationship of moeurs to the small city is more complicated than calvin's.'

'People come to depend on others for a sense of self. One manipulates one's appearance in the eyes of others so as to win thei approval, and thus feel good about oneself. ..... In a state of leisure, men and women develop the moeurs of actors, The seriousness of losing independence is masked because people are at play; they experience pleasure in losing themselves. In Rousseau words;
... the principal object is to please; and, provided that the people enjoy themselves, this object is sufficiently attained.'

'Large cities matter to Rousseau because they corrupt the very cente of a human being, corrupt his or her will. The very complexity of social and economict relations in the great city means you cannot tell what kind of man you are dealing with in any given situation by knowing what work he does, how many children he supports- in short, by how he survives. ... The situations in which you are likely to meet him are those on which you are not meeting for some functional purpose, but meeting in the context of nonfunctional socializing, of social interaction for ots own sake. And on this insight he imposes his analysis of the nature of leisured play. For in the state of leisure, people interact more and more for the sheer pleasure of contact; the more they interact outside the strictures of necessity the more they become actors. ...... Reputation- being known, being recognized, being singled out. In a big city this pursuit of fame becomes an end in itself; the means are all the impostures, conventions, and manners which people are so free to toy at in the comopolis. And yet these means leand inexorably to the end, for when one has no fixed 'place' in a society, dictated by the statewhich in turn is but the instrument of a Higher Power, then one makes up a place for oneself by manipulating one';s appearance. Because playacting is corrupt, all one wants to get from palying with one's appearance is applause. For Rousseau, the cosmopolis, in turn , destroys the believability of religion, because one can make up one;s own place, own;s identity, rather than submit to the identity the Higher Power has assigned one. The pursuit of reputation replaces the pursuit of virtue.

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Just as clocks are ordinarily wound up to go only 24- hours at a time, so these people have to go into society every night to learn what they're going to think the next day. (tv?) Rousseau From Julie

People meem me full of friendship; they show me a thousands civilities; they render me services of all sorts. but that is precisely what i am complaining of. How can you become immediately the friend of a man whom you have never seen before? The true human interest, the plain and noble effusion of an honest soul- these speak a language far different from the insincere demonstration of politeness (and the false appearance) which the custom of the great world demand. julie rousseau